Hiroyuki Sasaki

Founder, Tomorrowland

The designer and businessman has been at the helm of the iconic Japanese fashion brand for more than 30 years.

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Biography

Hiroyuki Sasaki is the founder, chairperson and executive director of the Japanese fashion powerhouse, Tomorrowland.

Sasaki grew up near the port of Yokohama and after graduation, he joined a local textiles trading company. “I had always been interested in trade. Ever since I was a high school student, when I was asked ‘What kind of work would you like to do in the future?’ I remember replying, ‘I would like to be the boss,’” writes Sasaki on the Tomorrowland website.

Quality has always been key for Sasaki, so much that he began developing his own fabrics using traditional methods like kiryu orimono, a homespun tweed technique. The fabrics were used for the Tomorrowland menswear brand, which he launched in 1978, at the age of 30, opening the first store in Aoyama, Tokyo.

Tomorrowland has since grown to become an empire, with over 100 stores throughout Japan, in cities including Tokyo, Kyoto, Fukuoka, Nagoya and Kobe. Tomorrowland also manages stores in Japan for western brands like
Acne Studios,
Dries Van Noten, James Perse, Golden Goose and
Isabel Marant, whom Sasaki has known for 20 years.
In 2015, the first overseas freestanding Tomorrowland store opened on Broome Street in New York. Tomorrowland is currently stocked by global retailers including
Mr Porter and MatchesFashion.com.